The invention relates to a seal to be applied between the walls of a cooled continuous mould and the head of a starter bar in a continuous casting plant.
It has been known to seal off the starter bar head positioned in the mould with respect to the mould walls by means of sealing cords, such as asbestos cords. The sealing cords have to be introduced by hand and pressed with great care in between the starter bar head and the mould walls. This operation has to be carried out anew with each casting start, thus long set-up times are necessary. Therefore, it may happen that a subsequent charge cannot be poured in time. A further disadvantage of this seal is that its quality depends on the care and skill of the worker attaching the sealing. If the worker fails to notice a leakage, a running out of the molten metal at the onset of casting will result. Furthermore, it is disadvantageous that the sealing cords are deposited in the strand guide after extraction of the starter bar head, thus necessitating additional cleaning.